Entertainment
Forget ‘Star Wars,’ Prime Video’s Next Sci-Fi Franchise Is on the Horizon
Between hit series like Off Campus, Every Year After, and the upcoming Fourth Wing adaptation, Prime Video has been killing it, bringing young adult hits to its streaming service. For the latter, they’ve even teamed up with a newly minted Academy Award winner, Michael B. Jordan, who signed a development deal with Prime Video under his producing banner, Outlier Society. But the biggest surprise in their arsenal, with the biggest potential to take over the internet and earn legions of fans, hasn’t been made yet.
In 2021, bestselling author Charlie Jane Anders published her latest novel, Victories Greater Than Death, the first in what she dubbed The Unstoppable Trilogy. Almost immediately, Outlier Society optioned the trilogy for Prime Video before the second and third books were even published. While the last update on the adaptation was from 2022, when former Breaking Bad writer Gennifer Hutchison was hired as showrunner, if and when the series makes it to Prime Video, it should command the attention of every science fiction fan on the planet.
A Unique and Exciting Space Opera
Victories Greater Than Death begins with a teenage girl named Tina Mains, who for all the world looks like the average high schooler. What few know is that Tina is actually the clone of Thaoh Argentian, the legendary captain of an alien armada who was killed in action. Her comrades took a DNA sample and cloned her as a baby and placed her in the care of a single human woman, who raised her as her own and told Tina about her heritage on her 13th birthday. The kicker is that a beacon is implanted in Tina that will go off at some point in her life, allowing her to rejoin the alien fleet and pick up where Thaoh left off.
It doesn’t take too many chapters for the beacon to activate, but once it does, Tina, along with her BFF Rachael Townsend, is suddenly swept up into a galaxy-hopping adventure where the fate of the universe hangs in the balance. Along the way, the girls also navigate new friendships and relationships, while facing extremely personal crises and embracing their inner heroes.
The trilogy spans multiple planets, introduces new alien races, and dives into big ideas nearly constantly, but the impressive thing is that throughout all this, readers are fully on board with whatever happens due to Anders’s characters. Each and every character in the book is not only extremely likable but also easy to identify with, even as they end up in increasingly heady situations. They handle the chaos in ways that feel real, even taking time to breathe and reflect on what they’re in for, which most science fiction heroes do not do.
An Accepting and Progressive Galaxy
As if the great story and characters weren’t enough, the series will no doubt earn points for its representation of various minorities. The cast is not only ethnically diverse, with performers from around the world, but also features multiple LGBTQ+ characters. The books have major gay, lesbian, transgender, and non-binary characters who play major roles, and at no point are any of these made a big deal. One major character in the trilogy, Elza, is a Black transgender lesbian, a fact that is mentioned a grand total of twice before the series simply treats her as a normal person and even as a key player in the series’ action.
In a political climate where minorities are under attack nearly constantly, Anders presents a different universe where nobody in this galaxy is judged for what they look like or who they love. Numerous aliens that Tina and company encounter introduce themselves with their pronouns, some even with pronouns such as “Fire,” and the queer relationships in the book are not judged, but rather celebrated. Anders has created a world in which nobody is excluded from the party for any reason, which is not only refreshing but a sentiment that most stories nowadays sorely need.
With the science fiction landscape in dire need of new blood, Victories Greater Than Death has all the trappings to be the next big space adventure. With a diverse cast, a stunning series of new worlds to explore, and a story worth telling, the tremendous potential of the upcoming series cannot be overstated.
- First TV Show
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Star Wars The Clone Wars
- Created by
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George Lucas
- Latest TV Show
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The Acolyte
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